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CIA Crack Cocaine Connection

Whether through malign intent or gross negligence, the CIA contributed to the drug problem in South Central Los Angeles in the mid-1980s. How could it happen? Accomplices include the House Intelligence Committee, the Justice Department and the Attorney General's Office, which either passed the buck or ignored reports of illegal activity. National security is invoked like a mantra to deflect any inquiry. When journalists expose a story that implicates the upper echelons of government, they are often isolated, ostracized or, as in the case of Gary Webb, effectively silenced. A major scandal, involving criminal behavior, disappears from public view. The CIA's own Hitz report in 1998 largely corroborated Webb's allegations.

Speaker(s):

Gary Webb was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. In 1996, his Dark Alliance series in the San Jose Mercury News linking the CIA, the contras and drug trafficking in South Central Los Angeles created a national sensation. He was immediately attacked by major media. His own paper criticized and demoted him. He soon left the Mercury News. He is the author of Dark Alliance. He took his life on December 10, 2004. He was 49.